1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the medical treatment of obstructive sleep apnea and its associated symptom of snoring, and specifically to the use of adenosine, adenosine analogs, or nucleoside uptake blockers, e.g. dipyridamole as drug treatments for obstructive sleep apnea and snoring.
2. Prior Art
Obstructive sleep apnea is a common disorder which has no effective drug treatment. Since sleep apnea may be due in part to decreased ventilatory drive, ventilatory stimulants may provide effective treatment and decrease the number of apneas during sleep in patents with sleep apnea.
In the past, protriptyline, medroxyprogesterone, almitrine and doxapram were studied for their effects on sleep apnea. Protriptyline had slight effect on reducing apnea/hypopnea frequency and arousal frequency. However, this drug did not effect the mean apnea duration, and has no significant effect on apnea time as a portion of sleep stage time. This drug did improve the average oxygenation during sleep. Medroxyprogesterone acetate was found to have beneficial effects on several variables measured in the awake state in obesity-hypoventilation patients. Almitrine, a carotid body stimulating agent, was found to have no effect on apnea frequency in REM or NREM sleep. There was a slight reduction in NREM apnea duration. This study concluded that almitrine was probably not useful for obstructive sleep apnea. Doxapram, a known ventilatory stimulant, failed to decrease apneas during sleep. It does cause termination of disordered breathing events at higher levels of oxyhemoglobin saturation.